27 Sep 2/12 School in the US vs Sweden

Hi! Now that I have settled in and got everything under control regarding school I thought I would share my thoughts about differences between school in the US and in Sweden.

I have thought about it a lot since my first day in school here. I remember how terrified I was going to the classes with teachers that can ask you questions anytime. I put so much effort into being prepared for every single class. This may sound like an obvious thing to do for people who live in the US, but it’s not in Sweden. First of all, we don’t pay anything to go to the university, it’s all financed by the state through taxes. When you go to a class in Sweden the teachers aren’t going to force you to do good on exams or to participate in class, and I think the reasons may be that the teachers has a way of only showing a PowerPoint and explaining the content of that or because school is for free, and therefore a lot of  people might not take school as seriously as people in the US, who pays for it.

As I was saying, teachers don’t point at you to answer a question to see if you have done your homework so there’s no pressure on you to be prepared. After nearly 5 weeks in school I’ve started to like the US concept more. To be prepared for every class makes it easier to keep up and really understand the subject, instead of studying the last hours before the exam and forgetting everything the day after.

A big difference is also that in Sweden we take one class at a time, not 5 simultaneously, which makes it easier when you only focus at one subject at a time. At first I also feared that I was going to be confused and mix everything up, but now I like this more as well. As you probably could guess by now I love studying to increase my knowledge to be able to pursue a successful career in the future. If you ask someone else they might tell you that they like the Swedish system more, I think that’s a sign of laziness ;)

/Maggie